The Odd Couple

Can a billion-dollar giant find true happiness with a San Francisco entrepreneur? Time Inc. is betting $5 million that it can.

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You know the plot by heart: big company becomes sluggish and seeks revitalization by buying into an entrepreneur's dream. Both sides profess undying love. Then the big company offers to help the entrepreneur do "a few little things." The entrepreneur soon grows frustrated and leaves. In the final scene, we watch the results of a love gone wrong -- the orphaned acquisition becomes as lackluster as its foster parent.

It might be useful to keep this old chestnut in mind as you hear about Robin Wolaner and Time Inc., who are still very much in love.

The story of their initial meeting is probably apocryphal, but it does set the stage.

When Wolaner, the former publisher of the decidedly anticorporate Mother Jones magazine, arrived from San Francisco at Time Inc.'s posh New York offices in January of last year, Time executives spent a long time staring at her short brown hair. "I am told they wanted to see if I really did have a flower behind one ear and a joint behind the other," says Wolaner, 32, trying to suppress a laugh.

But executives in Time's magazine-development group had more than just cultural reasons to approach Wolaner with suspicion. She wanted $5 million to develop a magazine geared to young parents. Time Inc. -- which publishes People, Sports Illustrated, and a number of other magazines in addition to its flagship newsweekly -- had never before funded an American magazine it hadn't created.

Sure, Wolaner was a pro -- albeit one that buttoned-down Time executives found, well, different. True, she had worked everywhere from Runner's World to Penthouse, but just look at her terms! For that $5 million, Time would own only 49% of Parenting magazine. Wolaner would retain control, and she planned to use it. For example, the magazine would be based in San Francisco, where she lives, not New York.

Wolaner's demands were nonnegotiable, but she didn't expect to leave the meeting with a check. That was OK. Heavily bureaucratic Time was exactly her idea of "who I should not be involved with. I'd never fit in. I am Jewish, a woman, and I didn't go to the right schools." She was in New York only because a venture capitalist she knew had vouched for Donald Spurdle, head of Time's magazine-development group. More important, she hoped that she'd eventually get a chance to present her case to the Larry Bird of the editing business, Time's editor in chief, Henry Anatole Grunwald. So it wouldn't end up being a wasted trip.

But sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction. Parenting magazine went on sale January 15. Where did Robin Wolaner get the funding -- $5 million to be exact? Time Inc.

"Robin is absolutely terrific," says Spurdle. "We think the fact that she has a different perspective is complimentary and positive."

That may be. But a little perspective of our own is helpful in understanding why Time may believe that.

Although it is the nation's leading publisher, Time hasn't had a winner since the introduction of People in 1974. Its most visible failure was TV-Cable Week, intended to be the TV Guide for cable subscribers. Not only was Time forced to take a $47 million write-off on the magazine in 1983, but its image was tarnished further by the publication of a book about the debacle. In The Fanciest Dive, former Time Inc. editor Christopher Byron portrays the company's handling of the magazine's launch as inept at best.

There were other failures, too. A financial weekly, designed to challenge Barron's, never saw the light of day. And just three months ago, Time announced it had scrapped the idea of publishing Picture Week, a magazine described by cynics as being aimed at readers who find People too challenging. That decision came after Time spent $15 million in development costs and a year of testing.

Partially as a result of these failures, Time is firmly on the list of potential takeover targets.

Given this history, it isn't surprising the company is looking for help in developing magazines. But even so, backing Wolaner is a bit of a stretch.

Raised in Long Island, N.Y., a short train ride away from the Time building in Rockefeller Center, Wolaner attended Cornell University expecting to go to law school, but a summary job as a secretary at Penthouse convinced her publishing would be more fun. After graduation, she wrote ads for Penthouse and then moved to its sister publication, Viva, as an editor. Next, Wolaner became circulation manager of Runner's World. From there she joined Mother Jones, where she ran the business side of the publication.

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